Blackpoll Warblers

It's not the most colorful of the tribe -- black and white essentially -- and it has the dinkiest little song, nothing more than a distant, barely audible lisp. But it marks the turn of the season. The appearance of Blackpoll Warblers traditionally heralds the final phase of spring warbler migration. This morning was the first time this year that I heard the insect-like buzz trailing off somewhere in the treetops and eventually I was able to locate a couple of the birds, barely visible against the white glare that constitutes our skies these days. May is about to turn into June, spring into summer.

It actually wasn't the only warbler around. Pine Warbler, after a couple of weeks of absence, has returned to trill its way through the woods. And there are still some Yellow Warblers in the vicinity. Common Yellowthroat has stopped singing although I did see a single female yesterday. Will the males resume when the weather warms up and is more to their liking?

A Red-eyed Vireo or two is still offering its endless strings of questions and answers somewhere in the oaks. And a couple of Cedar Waxwings are putting the lie to the convention that you never see one or two waxwings but always a flock.

Identified a new mushroom. Pluteus cervinus has white gills but pink spores and is reputed to be edible. I didn't try to eat it since there were a couple of anomalies. Most of the specimens had whitish caps rather than the fawn color that is supposed to mark the species. Also Entolomas also have pink spores and can be quite poisonous so it didn't seem worth testing out the accuracy of my diagnosis (although I'm pretty sure that I got it right).

I did also find two of the more familiar Agaricus arvensis, big and meaty 'Horse Mushrooms', also with white gills but with darker spores that eventually turn the gills a dark purply chocolate. I was certain of this diagnosis so I did cook them up with the bulbs of some wild onions (Allium) in a little butter and oil; delicious! This seems quite early for both species; we don't see many mushrooms at this time of year and, alas, the delicious Morel esculenta, the classic May mushroom, does not seem to occur here at all.

Eric Salzman